Emerging Prairie is an organization that energizes communities through our initiatives, events, and programming which moves the needle and ignites economic growth for the Midwest region. With our mission and vision as a guiding force, we strive to support the founders, creators, innovators, and community builders across the region to be curious and relentless in their pursuits.
Our Mission: communities
Our Vision: The relentless pursuit of the human condition
What Does Emerging Prairie Do?
Emerging Prairie focuses on energizing a set of communities through various initiatives, events, and programs. Our key communities are: Entrepreneurship, Technology, and Innovation.
Entrepreneurship
We’re creating a commitment to the entrepreneurs and founders that are creating opportunities across our region. We believe that “a rising tide lifts all boats” and by supporting the entrepreneurial community we are helping build better lives for everyone in our region.
Technology
We’ve seen that economic impact is driven by the development of new technology. New businesses arise, our knowledge expands, and new opportunities are created. We are dedicated to supporting the development of this community and meeting the needs of those within it.
Innovation
True innovation lies at the heart of improving the human condition. By continuing to stretch our potential, we challenge the notion of “what is” and “what can be.” The start of every great era began with innovation - the wheel, the printing press, the internet. So we’re asking ourselves - what’s next?
Beginnings
In 2013, a group of four like-minded individuals saw growth and possibility happening across the major cities of the Midwest - Chicago, Cincinnati, Omaha, Kansas City, Minneapolis, and more. They saw the potential to replicate that in our region and knew that by telling the stories of the incredible entrepreneurs around our local region, we would help them gain access to capital, talent, and other critical resources. Those four founders began Emerging Prairie as a digital media company, writing blogs and article posts.
Events & Programs
Eventually, the organization came to a realization that it had a knack for creating connections through meetups and events. This launched Emerging Prairie into the world of event planning - meetups, conferences, and more. This era saw the emergence of TEDxFargo, Cultivate Conference, 1 Million Thanks, and more.
Grand Farm
In March of 2017, Barry Batcheller, a local entrepreneur, issued a challenge to our community - “what is our region’s major?”, or, what is a speciality that is going to attract new businesses and innovation to our area. Farming, business, and civic leaders gathered in the days following and to discuss the topic and decided that our region could center around advanced technology in agriculture. Emerging Prairie took the lead in bringing this idea to life, and thus, the Grand Farm Initiative was born.
Emerging Digital Academy
From the Grand Farm, it was identified that technology workforce development needed to be addressed to upskill our region and fill the thousands of open software development positions. In April 2020, we launched Emerging Digital Academy, a 20-week immersive coding and software development bootcamp to address that issue, launching with 13 students in the first cohort. 
And now we’re here - we’ve continued to expand beyond the confines of what is, into what could be. We’re taking risks, making bets, and continuing to do what we believe is best for our region. At the center of our work lies our vision - the relentless pursuit to improve the human condition.
